Imports Of Edible Oil By India Decrease And Pure Oil Mills Sees It As A Good Thing

According to an observation made by Pure Oil Mills, India’s decrease in import of edible oil means that lesser outflow of foreign exchange. Considering the decline of import of vegetable oils from 14.8 lakh tonne in May to a drop at 10.5 lakh tonne in July this year then seems to be a good thing. Another thing about this observation is that mustard oil which is made in India will be consumed more.

Increase In Mustard Oil Consumption

“Edible oil consumption is expected to exceed 34 million tonne by the year 2030, according to a RaboResearch paper,” said Umesh Verma, general manager, marketing communications, Puri Oil Mills while speaking to F&B News. “To some extent, the encouraging drop that was witnessed in July 2018 may be attributed to steps taken by the Government of India in March 2018, wherein there was a hike the duty on vegetable oil imports were hiked from 33 per cent to 48.4 per cent. However, there is another factor that contributed to this decline in demand – the growth in the consumption of India’s very own mustard oil.”

“India produces around 8-9 million tonne of mustard oil annually. Mustard is an important cash crop, the area under cultivation being over six million hectare. In fact, mustard accounts for 30-35 percent of India’s overall edible oil production,” Verma added. “The spiralling demand for mustard oil is also being felt by marketers,” said Vivek Puri, managing director, Puri Oil Mills. “Our company, that manufactures P Mark Mustard Oil and across all our markets, the demand for mustard oil has been rising sharply and our multiple manufacturing facilities have been working on a 24X7 basis to meet this surging demand,” he added.